Under the Radar

Blog Roll

James Schultz: "The issues, as you can expect, come at you quickly and there's a lot of them all at one time." | Eric Thayer/Getty Images

Trump White House ethics lawyer exits

By JOSH GERSTEIN

11/27/2017 05:09 AM EST

The ranks of former White House ethics lawyers available to comment on the ongoing controversies engulfing President Donald Trump's administration has just grown by one — an attorney who's certain to offer a much different perspective than the most prominent figures now ensconced as seemingly permanent fixtures on cable news.

After almost a year in the White House counsel's office tackling a raft of ethics and financial disclosure issues, James Schultz resigned last week and is returning to private practice at the Philadelphia-based law firm where he previously worked, Cozen O'Connor.

Schultz insists his exit is unrelated to any of those myriad controversies, but simply triggered by a desire to get back to private law work and back to Philadelphia, where his family has remained.

"That was something Don [McGahn, the White House counsel] and I discussed very early on," Schultz told POLITICO on Sunday. "I was interested in continuing with private practice and saw this as a tremendous opportunity to go serve and get things up and running and the plan was to move on about this time. ... These are typically year-to-about-18-months-type positions."

Asked if he plans to join the public, often-televised debate on alleged conflicts of interest involving Trump administration figures, Schultz said he expects to, but doesn't plan to make it a full-time job.

"That'll be something I'd be willing to do, certainly, getting out and talking about the good work the Trump administration is doing on these issues," he said. "I will be out, but I don't plan to make a career out of being a pundit on TV. ... I'm planning to have a robust law practice."

Schultz said some of the media attention to ethics issues in the Trump administration has been valid because of the complexity of the personal holdings of business-sector veterans joining the Cabinet and other top positions. However, some of that concern has been exaggerated and distorted, he said.

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

"There has been undue attention. ... We've been more onerous in making people divest and recuse than the agencies would have required," Schultz said. "Some in the news media unfairly criticize this administration and take every opportunity to take shots, even when they're not justified. ...There have been folks out there trying to make a name for themselves in that space by being critics in order to set themselves up for other positions down the road."

Asked about some of the frequent talking heads, Schultz faulted former Office of Government Ethics chief Walter Shaub, who resigned in July after going public with several disagreements with the White House over such issues Trump's plans not to divest his business holdings and to leave his family members in charge of those enterprises. Shaub now serves as an adviser on government ethics issues for a nonprofit group, the Campaign Legal Center.

“It became pretty evident early on that Shaub’s goal was to set himself up to be a pundit when he left government," Schultz said. "Nobody knew who Walter Shaub was before Donald Trump became president. ... He immediately thrust himself into the limelight instead of being helpful on the issues where he could have been. It was more about him than about ethics.”

Shaub said he would have preferred to remain in obscurity but felt it was his duty to speak out about ethical breaches in the Trump administration.

"I had to walk away from the best job I ever had, or ever will have, and an ethics program to which I devoted the bulk of my career. I wish nobody knew my name. I wish Jim Schultz and this White House hadn’t given people a reason to know my name," Shaub said Sunday night. "I wish Jim well. I hope he’s better at his next job, or at least lasts a full year in it.”

Several Trump White House counsel's office lawyers have already moved on to top posts at government agencies. One, Greg Katsas, has been nominated to the D.C. Circuit. However, Schultz is the first to return to the private sector.

Due to his salary, listed at $140,000 in a report submitted in June, Schultz is not covered by a law prohibiting former government employees from contacting their former agencies on behalf of others for one year. He said is subject to an ethics pledge the Trump administration required that imposes a five-year ban on becoming a registered lobbyist and a lifetime ban on being a foreign lobbyist.

Schultz, 45, previously worked as general counsel to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and as a top aide to Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), when he was a U.S. attorney. Schultz said those jobs gave him some experience dealing with high-profile issues and media attention, but the volume and breadth of work handled by a relatively small White House legal staff still took him aback.

"In state government, I managed an army of almost 500 lawyers because you had all executive branch agency lawyers reporting to the governor's general counsel," Schultz said. "In the White House what was a surprise to me was you had roughly a 25-person team that had to work around the clock. ... The issues, as you can expect, come at you quickly and there's a lot of them all at one time."

Schultz served as a deputy to the White House's senior ethics official, Deputy White House Counsel Stefan Passantino. Many of Schultz's ethics-related duties are expected to be taken over by Associate Counsel Scott Gast, who's been at the White House since January and previously worked for the House's Office of Congressional Ethics.

Schultz also worked on transportation and contracting-related executive orders, as well as judicial and U.S. attorneys nominations for the states he's most familiar with: Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He said he believes the work the Trump White House has done on judicial nominations will ultimately be its most enduring

"I look at the judges as a real legacy in changing the face of the courts and putting originalists in to those positions," Schultz said. "That's something where even now we can look back and say, 'We had some real impact.'"